FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. --

In the end, Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden were right. That's not surprising -- two men don't coach for a combined 70 seasons at two schools and rack up 713 wins in Division I college football if they don't both know what they are talking about.

All week, leading up to the FedEx Orange Bowl, both of college football's most noted septuagenarians reminded everyone who would listen that the game would be played by the players on the field, not by the old-timers on the sidelines.

"If Bobby can run as fast as his wideouts, I'll be shocked." Paterno said early in the week.

The game did end up being decided on the field. No matter how prepared the two coaches got their respective teams, it was Michael Robinson and Austin Scott, Willie Reed and Lorenzo Booker who ended up deciding the outcome.

But whether they liked it or not, the two men combined for a coaching matchup far too delicious to ignore. Who didn't want to know how this pair, so alike in some ways and so different in others, had managed to last decades in a business that chews up and spits out most men in a half, a quarter, or an eighth as long?

"I cannot explain it, it's just the way God made me; I have no desire to get out of it," Bowden said. "I'd rather do what I'm doing than retire. And yet I'll have to retire one of these days -- If I can live that long."

The thought of one or both of these men retiring only at their own funerals is not hard to imagine, but in the week leading up to what may be the final game played between these two college football titans, everyone wanted to know how they had changed in their years on the bench and how those adjustments had allowed them to stay on top of a game that has changed so much.

Paterno has changed in some ways. Always a proponent of playing physically and pounding the other team with the run, he has loosened up his offense to take advantage of the playmakers on his current squad. Then again, he answered similar questions about his offensive gameplan in 1994 when he unleashed Kerry Collins and his flying circus on an unsuspecting Big Ten.

Bowden has always been a master of making the most of the talent he has. His offense has been changed time and time again to fit the strengths of his players. He won games with the slippery, elusive Charlie Ward at quarterback, but he also won with a statue like Chris Weinke under center.

But in more fundamental ways, they haven't changed a bit.

Sure, there are the little things, the tweaks in the offensive gameplan or some different defensive packages to deal with the amount of speed in college football today. But the bedrock that these men established their careers on years ago has not shifted more than an inch, and the foundations they have built their programs on have held strong no matter how fearsome the shaking from the outside.

Both men have gotten wiser -- that's the benefit of age -- but both still believe strongly in the same things they did when they started coaching. Neither can put his finger on exactly what it is that has made him so wildly successful.

"You and I meet people all the time and think, 'This guy just don't have 'it.' 'Then this other guy, he's got something. Well Joe's got 'it.' As long as I've known Joe, he's always done it the right way," Bowden said. "Joe has got that something."

In a way, the week leading up to the Orange Bowl played out exactly how one would have expected, with both men acting their parts in an intricate balance.

Paterno played the role of a cranky old man and played it well. He spent the week ripping the media, going so far as to call one writer "a whale," and complaining about the distractions of the bowl atmosphere for his team. When the game started, he threw one of his now legendary tantrums on the sideline after a call he didn't like.

Bowden was, as always, the consummate showman, beguiling Orange Bowl followers with his endless supply of stories and southern charm, and treating every planned event like it was Saturday night at the Improv.

Some admit they are rubbed the wrong way by Paterno's sandpapery demeanor. Others prefer him to Bowden, who can sometimes come across as being friendly to the point of being disingenuous.

Either way, neither could explain how he had managed to last so long for the simple reason that neither really feels like taking the time to sit down and think about it. Both are too focused on getting their teams ready for the next game, the next season.

"I wonder how many coaches could have survived what Joe survived. I wonder how many coaches would be willing to go through what he went through," Bowden said. "I can imagine the criticism I've gotten, I can just imagine what Joe has gotten. He had to have something, boy, to stay through that. How many coaches would have stayed through that? And the fact that he did really shows what he is made of."

But as Bowden put it, Paterno survived the losing and criticism of the last few years, and Bowden survived the losing and criticism of this year, because they both have "it."

Both are born leaders, and both will be coaches through and through until the day they die, even if they have retired.

Oddly enough, though, both men wondered aloud if they could do it all over again if given the chance.

"You know, if I was starting all over again, I am not sure I'd stay in coaching. As much as I have enjoyed it," Paterno said. "I think if you are a young coach and you are trying to establish yourself, it's tough. It really is tough. And I would doubt that there would be many guys that would stick it out that long."

Bowden echoed the same sentiment, almost to a word.

"I doubt if I could make it today. I doubt if I could make it very long today," he said. "Going through what you have to go through now, that I did not have to go through 25 years ago, I don't know if I'd be willing to do it again."

But they would do it again, and they could do it again, and both men most likely know this deep down. They were born to coach and born to lead. Both men would miss it desperately if they quit, and that is the main reason that neither has.

Certainly the pressure surrounding the job today is different than it was when both men started, but the reason that most coaches today have a snowball's chance in Miami of ever lasting 10, let alone 40 years, is that they simply aren't Bobby Bowden or Joe Paterno.

Few are.